


Mine, Not Mine

by delphia2000



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-16
Updated: 2009-11-16
Packaged: 2017-10-03 03:37:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delphia2000/pseuds/delphia2000
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is dead and Rodney's not handling it too well, but Sam's got a perfect fix.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mine, Not Mine

**Author's Note:**

> Sorta AU, somewhat angsty, kinda character death  
> Slash, established relationship, some kissing, nothing too graphic  
> Thanks for sidlj for the beta. Any mistakes are mine, not hers.

"I don't want to see her, and I don't want to talk to her."

His back turned, Rodney didn't look at his sister, knowing she'd be both hurt and frustrated. He didn't want to hurt her because he owed her so much, but he just couldn't do this right now.

"I'm not sending her away, Mer. I would if I didn't believe she's here to help you, but I talked to her. She's…it's...extenuating circumstances. You have to trust me on this one."

Rodney had to turn to look in sister's eyes, to see if she really believed this or maybe if she'd just grown sick of him hiding out here, living in her basement like some juvenile computer geek sponging off his family to maintain a slacker lifestyle. Except he wasn't a slacker. He wanted to work, but the military blocked him at every turn. He couldn't publish, couldn't teach and no corporation would touch him once they checked his references. His punishment for leaving Atlantis; for leaving the program altogether. He wasn't living off her either since five years of unused pay had accumulated to the point of making him almost wealthy. He made sure she would take the money, if not for herself, as least to squirrel away for Madison's future.

Jeannie looked sincere. It didn't matter. "You can't possibly understand."

"I do," she assured him, reaching out to touch his shoulder briefly.

"I know you think you do, but it's not…"

She cut in. "It's because of John. You loved him."

Rodney swallowed hard. He didn't think she knew. "Yes, well, then if you do understand, then you know there is nothing they can do to fix this. He's dead and he's not coming back and I'm not going back. Finito. Tell her I said 'Merry Christmas, good luck, and good-bye.'"

"I'm not going away until I talk to you, Rodney, so you might as well come upstairs and talk or I'm coming in. And I don't care if you're dressed or not," said a calm voice from beyond the doorway.

He wanted to glare menacingly in a Ronon kind of way at his sister, but he knew he probably looked more like the ten-year-old his sister ratted out to their parents the time he'd co-opted the toaster for an experiment in thermal energy. Jeannie shrugged. "What did you want me to do, Mer? She's trained in hand-to-hand combat. Besides, you need to talk to someone. You won't talk to me."

He noticed Sam put her foot in the doorway when she finally stepped into view as if she feared he'd slam the door on her. There were other, less physical ways to slam things which could be just as satisfying. "I'd be happy to talk to Dr. Heightmeyer. Oh, wait…she's dead too. My bad."

Sam didn't flinch the way he'd hoped she would. Why he wanted to blame her, he wasn't sure, except he wanted to blame someone for good people dying and she was a convenient target. It didn't make him feel any better and he was certain had she flinched, or even looked guilty, he still wouldn't have felt better. He wasn't sure if what he saw in her eyes was sorrow for their losses or just pity for him.

"I won't ask you to come back, I promise. I won't ask you to do anything other than to come to the mountain and talk to someone…not a shrink. Just someone who needs your help. If you don't want to do anything further, we won't bother you again."

"Great. That's a very generous offer. So I can come back here and live like a mushroom until I'm dead? The military won't let me publish, won't let me work. I should have been in that jumper with him. I'd be better off now," he said bitterly.

"You both needed to do what you did to save Atlantis and everyone there. If you'd died with him, Teyla and her baby wouldn't be playing pattycake now. She sent you this, by the way."

Sam held out a picture and the sight of it hurt like the dull ache of an old wound. Rodney found himself taking it before he realized that he was accepting something he should have pushed away before his heart cracked further. In the photo, Teyla was smiling at little Torren John as the child grasped her nose and Rodney could see a beaming Uncle Ronon in the background. He felt sick.

"Come to the Mountain. Think it over tonight. I'll send a car in the morning. This isn't all about you, Rodney, but it's still something that could make things better for you. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't this important."

"Ah, yes, you need me to save the Universe just one more time."

Sam smiled tightly. "No. I'm asking you to save yourself. Stop trying to drown yourself. This is a lifeline. Take it."

She and Jeannie both left then, his sister quietly closing the door behind them. Rodney stood holding the picture for a long time before he could correctly identify his feelings. He wasn't just sick. He was homesick. John might be gone, but Teyla and Ronon and Atlantis were not. If there was anything in this universe left of John, it was there, with those who loved him. However, that was why he left. Everything and everyone in Atlantis reminded him of John and it rubbed all the wounds raw and new again just to be there. No matter how much he missed it, he couldn't go back feeling like this.

~*~

He spent part of the night trying not to think and then, after a while, he spent time trying to devise the best grand gesture he could make, but he didn't think he could get a hold of that much naquadah in so short a time. In the end, when the limo arrived in the morning, he got in.

Sam greeted him as he stepped off the elevator and dismissed the two 'escort' marines who'd accompanied him. "Thank you for coming. I don't think you'll regret this," she told him as they walked down the hall.

"I already do," he answered. "No doubt, fifteen minutes from now, after you've told me what the hell this is all about, I will still regret it. Can you at least sum it up in one sentence? Wraith? Replicators? Goa'uld? Someone or something new?"

She paused at what he knew was the doorway to Landry's big conference room, just outside his office and the Gateroom. The door was opened and held by the marine who was apparently on guard duty. "Temporal distortion."

He sighed as he pushed past her, into the room and then half-turned to sneer at her, "What, you ripped a hole in time again and you want me to sew it up?"

"No, we fixed that part," she told him with a small smile. "I'll be in the mess hall if you need me." Then she closed the door in his face.

What the hell, Rodney thought to himself. He turned to see who he'd be talking to, who she had suggested needed his help and found a lone figure slumped forward in a chair at the far end of the table. The man's head rested on his arms which were laid crisscrossed on the table, looking much like a child napping at daycare. Quirky bed-head hair was all he could take in for seconds as his heart slammed up his throat.

"John."

The man raised his head, looking through exhaustion-glazed eyes. "Rodney?"

Rodney fought the urge to move, to grab this man and shake him so hard for making him feel this way and then to kiss him so hard for making him feel this way. But John was dead. He'd seen the Puddle Jumper explode into a million tiny burning bits high over Atlantis.

Temporal distortion, Carter had said. This wasn't John. Well, not his John.

They both spoke at the same time. "You're alive…" "You didn't die…"

Rodney paused. It sounded like his John. Except it couldn't be. His John died and this wasn't John. Not his John. "Ah, no. Not in this universe. So, I was the one who died in yours?"

The man's face was a mask of pain only for a second before he was able to pull himself together, sitting more upright and looking more alert in the process. "No, you all did. I was the only survivor."

"Then…"

"No, I can't go back. There's nothing to go back to. They got Earth too. Colonel Carter has offered me sanctuary here, since, you know…no cascade effect problems."

With his double here dead, Sheppard could stay in this universe without any temporal paradox, except, of course, there'd be paperwork problems the like of which the military had never dealt with before. Why am I worried about paperwork? Rodney wondered as he gazed hungrily at the man. This isn't my John, he reminded himself. He realized he'd moved closer, looking carefully as if searching for some imperfection, some difference between this man and his John. Pulling out a chair, he sat down, the better to keep from moving any more near the source of his pain. The man's gaze followed him just as keenly. Or maybe he was just imagining that part.

Rodney noticed a water jug and grabbed a glass, pouring himself a drink to help push his heart back into place with a deep swallow. Not mine, Rodney reminded himself. Not John. Sheppard, he christened him, a mental move he realized was a feeble attempt to protect what little sanity he had left, even though the man looked just like his John.

"You look just like him," Sheppard echoed his thoughts. Then he flailed a bit in explanation, "I mean, not like…not like Rod, you know. Not like him. More like my…"

Rodney cocked his head. "You met Rod too? What was he doing? Jumping through time hoops like a poodle?"

"Met him same time as you did," Sheppard said. "Look, I've talked to a lot of people, our…your coworkers and it looks like our universes diverged at…that exact moment."

Rodney sucked in his breath. The universe wasn't random according to Einstein. Of all the possible John Sheppards who could have shown up in his universe, it turned out to be the one who was probably the closest possible match to the man he'd lost; his friend and his lover. It was like having his John back. Only not. Not his John.

Carter had found the one bait he couldn't refuse. God, he hated her.

Shoving back from the table, he stood, desperate to flee, but unable to deliberately further wound this man who looked so like the other half of his heart. "I can't do this. I'm sorry. It's just not…you're not…"

Sheppard was up and at his side in seconds, so close Rodney noticed the man smelled the same as his John. "No, I'm not, and you aren't my Rodney, but we're all we have."

Rodney recognized the tone of quiet desperation underlying the appeal to logic in the situation. He'd heard it often enough in crisis situations when the 'Team Leader' used his persuasive silver tongue to save the universe's ass once again. Sheppard reached out a hand to him, but dropped it as if realizing that an uninvited touch would distract rather than underscore his words. Rodney wanted to back away, but couldn't help wondering if perhaps that hand would feel the same on him.

"I thought I could just be happy living in a universe where you were at least alive, but I can't. I miss you too much. Rodney, I miss us too much and I know I'm not him, but I am and I know you aren't mine, but you are him and I need you. Atlantis needs you, too," he added, weakly.

They'd never used the l-word, being manly men and all that. But John had admitted more than once that he needed him. It was their special phrase, one that could be said in public with all the private meanings attached. Rodney's throat was dry again as he moved a bit closer to watch Sheppard's eyes as he whispered, "Don't ask, don't tell."

"I don't give a shit," Sheppard answered just as quietly and Rodney knew even if this wasn't his John, it was still John the way he remembered him. "We can take this slow," he added, but Rodney couldn't because he had to know at least one thing for sure.

He leaned over just far enough to gently kiss Sheppard's lips. It felt the same. It tasted the same. Sheppard's hand crept up, same as ever, gently touching his cheek and then sliding down to cup his jaw as he kissed back, deepening the kiss and flicking a tongue briefly over Rodney's lower lip.

Rodney pulled back. "You know there's a camera in this room."

"I still don't give a shit."

Same John. Not his, but still John. And his, if he wanted him. "I thought about stealing a Puddle Jumper to go back in time, but I didn't think I could get it to work for me," Rodney confessed. "You know; my artificial gene and all."

"That's what I was trying to do, when I ended up here. I'll take you if that's what you want to do."

The pain caught in his throat again. Only John would have made an offer like that; willing to sacrifice his life for him…again. "What about you?"

Sheppard shrugged. "I'll find another universe. One where I didn't take you back in time."

"That….makes absolutely no sense at all. You can't do that!" Rodney finally accused, his scientific sensibilities abused beyond defending his heart. "Did your Rodney teach you nothing about time travel? Besides, the chances of finding another universe so similar to the one you left is…astronomical! It could take you years."

He saw Sheppard's amusement in his eyes as he realized his tone had cranked up to its natural 'annoyed-by-stupidity' octave. "I have all the time in the universe," Sheppard answered.

The smile hadn't reached his lips and Rodney knew this man, this John would spend eternity looking for the one person who made it all make sense for him. He knew because he felt the same way. "But you don't have all the power in the universe. What were you using when you made this jump?"

"Just the Jumper and a little extra pull from a black hole."

"A black hole? What kind of moron are you?" Rodney fumed at him, flailing hands finally grabbing Sheppard's shoulders, giving him a little shake. "No wonder you ended up in the wrong place!"

"Did I?"

As ever, John could stop him dead in his mental tracks. He took his hands off him. "Maybe not."

Sheppard put his hand on Rodney's shoulder as if he knew it would be welcomed this time. It was. "Come home?" he invited further.

Home. The place where the smell of the sea permeated every level and mystery meat in the cafeteria tasted differently every day and the very walls hummed pleasantly under his fingertips. And the universe needed his brilliant mind to save it every other week. "What about Teyla and Ronon?"

"I've been working them for a little while. They're good with me, or at least so they say. Same for Colonel Carter. I think Lorne is a little freaked, but he's getting over it."

"It could take me a little while. I'm more than a little freaked here."

Sheppard physically backed off a bit, letting go of Rodney's shoulder as he nodded with understanding. "I can deal. I think we can deal. It's maybe not perfect, Rodney, but I think it can be good."

Rodney's mind raced a bit, imagining the work and the play and the way they all fit together. "I'll have to tell Jeannie I'll be going back. She will be disappointed to have her babysitter move out, I'm sure, especially one who knows higher math. Look, I know there's room. I'm sure Jeannie won't mind if you…"

"Yes. Yes, I'd love to stay over Christmas with you and your family," Sheppard said.

"Uh, okay then. Good." He realized he was standing there like an idiot so he gestured towards the door. "Let's go tell Colonel Carter then. Or ask. I guess you'll need to ask for furlough."

As they exited, Sheppard suggested, "You ask. She won't say no to anything you want at this point."

Shoulder to shoulder, they walked down the corridor towards the elevators, not quite in step, but almost there already.

"Good thinking. Maybe we should see if we can get use of a jet. I'd love to take Maddie to Disneyland."

"Chopper maybe? I really miss choppers."

"Are you out of your mind? Take a child up in one of those…I don't even know how they stay in the air and I'm a physicist! Forget it. Nice comfy jet. Maybe one of those ones they fly generals around in. Or Air Force One."

"Rodney, it's only Air Force One if the President is actually on board."

"He can come, too."

The End


End file.
